Saturday, February 28, 2009

I have been in a needle felting frame of mind. I have some commissioned pieces I need to get out and I am also working on some other designs that have been floating around in my brain, jostling to get out.Here are some pictures!

You are probably already familiar with the piggies. The bunny/heart is a fridge magnet. These are all my own design and I am very proud of them.

The chick and the bunny are both new designs and I am very pleased at how they turned out!

You know your needle felting is going the way it should when you are giggling with delight, and I was!

I have decided to start selling my little creations, since some of you have expressed some interest in actually buying one! If you are serious, they are 8$ plus shipping. I am guessing shipping won't be much since they don't even weigh an ounce. I won't have a set price for shipping, since I will charge whatever the post office charges me. I do take paypal. If you are interested in a piggy or bunny or chick email me at lakotajo2 at msn dot com. Custom colors available and each one will be pretty much made individually to your order. Because each one is handmade and an original, there will be some differences in each piece. If this turns out to be fairly popular, I just might open an Esty! Who knows? I just know they make me happy and are made with love and laughter.

Monday, February 23, 2009

I guess this is what happens when you don't blog for a whole week! I have a ton to share. But first, because it is Monday and we must follow our own rules. The mountains. I was so hoping to share something better than gray and cloudy, but no, another storm is coming in, just like last week. I did try to spice it up a bit, so we shall see.First off, our good friend, Ms. Tenacity, the oak leaf. Still hanging in there and ignoring all the naysayers. Go leaf!

Beautiful wild rose hips:

It is snowing up there!

The storm laying across the top of the mountain:

Hard to tell where the mountains end and the sky begins:

This is the view west of me:

ANDOn Friday, I got to enjoy all THREE of my granddaughters. Cute isn't the word. Squid is feeling much better and has bounced back wonderfully. I want you to know, I just put two pictures up per granddaughter and it was HARD!

Squidling age 6 months

The Pea, age 3 1/2

Check out June Bug's delectable piggy tails! She is 1 1/2.

ANDKristina organized a HUGE blogger lunch on Saturday.I got to ride down with Amber, Me and Bonnie. It totally made my day, cause we had our own little personal blogger get together there and back again. The lunch? Well, Goodwood will never be the same, and oh so much talking and laughter happened. I am sure the folks who work at Goodwood will be talking about our lunch as the craziest one they ever saw where no drinking was involved ever!Christa won the needle felted piggy I made for a drawing.She named him Phillip. I am sure he has a great home now.

Here I am in the infamous snuggie. I now wear my bathrobe backwards in honor of the snuggie.

A good time was had by all. Good thing, cause the boy caught a bad cold and was home from school today. Which is why this post is late. And he is coughing again, so my guess is he will be home tomorrow again. It is a good thing I have some good memories to make me chuckle.

Monday, February 16, 2009

The post won't be presidential, but I get tired of just posting Mountain Monday and it was the best I could come up with!Squid is out of the hospital! Stupid RSV. I didn't get any pictures, just lots of cuddling. She had an IV in her head and O2 in her nose and she was such a sad little thing. Much perkier now. Speaking of perky, I am feeling better too! Look at that, things are looking up all around here.And now, on to the Mountains. I thought it was very boring outside today. (Don't throw snowballs at me, please!) There is another storm coming in and the mountains were outlined against a gray sky, so the contrast is poor. But I will do my best to snazz them up.

Here is our little oak leaf, still hangin' on against the storms. Some would say, this leaf is unwilling to let go, to accept the inevitable reality of what will happen. I on the other hand, being an incurable optimist, say this leaf is filled with tenacity and faith, unwilling to accept the prevailing winds of "wisdom" and instead, continues to carve its own path into the future. What say you?

I find this to be a bit humdrum for my taste.

I thought the mountains looked prettier framed through the bare branches.

This frame seems to help this picture be a bit more formal.

And because I am playing with the frames on photoshop, here is before:

And after:

Definitely not my best pictures, but ah well, one can't have perfection every week, can they?

We didn't have any respite on Saturday, so we took the boy and the Pea to a children's museum. It was... well, good and bad.They had a little play there and the characters are picked from the audience. The director chose Little Man as one of the guards for the wicked queen, complete with little guard clothes.

Little Man did really well. Much better than we expected and he did a couple of funny things that made the whole audience laugh. We were sooo pleased. Until the end, when he very deliberately stomped on a fellow guard's hand. Why did he do that? He had been doing so well. It was so mean and so on purpose. I tried really hard to put it in two separate boxes in my mind, so I didn't just erase all his good behavior from before, as we sternly corrected him for hurting another child.

I have a new commenter, Cyndi, who doesn't have a blog, but is an old friend from high school who found me. It has been awesome to catch up with our lives. :::waving:: Hi Cyndi, thanks for the nice comments and you need to start your own blog so you can have nice comments too!

I have so much to tell you, but it will wait until tomorrow or the next day for its own post. My Monday was so so, with Little Man being home from school and being super clingy, but we all survived. Tomorrow is my Monday and I can't wait!

Friday, February 13, 2009

1. The main reason this will be short, I am just feeling under the weather, so I am not doing any commenting or even much reading. My apologies, I promise I will catch up when I am feeling better.2. Squid is in the hospital with RSV and I have been driving back and forth with that.3. Many good things going on too, just too tired to write. 4. Hugs to all of you.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Fear not, in spite of my mushy, gushiness, Mountain Monday will still happen. I have a couple of sets of pictures to share. Last week it rained and cleared the sky out, so I headed off to my favorite bird refuge/sunset place for what I hoped would be some good sunset pics.

I know it is blurry, because I couldn't get any closer, but it is a BALD EAGLE! How cool is that?

Blue Heron mating season, and it was so beautiful watching them.

This view was to the east of me.

This vista to the west of me.

I stood there for an hour, listening to all the different bird calls around me, breathing deep and letting the beauty all around fill my soul. How lucky am I?? Very lucky, very lucky indeed!

Random hawk flying, I am experimenting with frames here.

It was so beautiful and I went home renewed in mind and heart.

Today, there weren't exactly any mountains to see, because it was SNOWING like crazy! I went to a nearby park and I had to be careful. The snow was very wet and heavy and large tree branches were snapping off around me. While I was taking these pictures, TWO large branches snapped off with very loud cracks and then crashed to the ground. I made sure I wasn't near any trees with big branches. I braved the dangers of heavy snow just to capture these pictures for you!

As usual, I am ever impressed by the beauty that surrounds me every day. Thanks for letting me share it.

How can I tell you how grateful I am for you? For your tender, sweet emails and offers of kind generosity? I have shed tears of joy and gratitude for the open hearts and open hands within my circle of friends. And I know, more than ever, the world can be a good place, filled with people who care. People who don't have to, people who struggle through their own days, and still, still can find the love and energy to reach out to one of the little ones. You amaze me, humble me, lift me. Thank you darling, darling friends. I am in AWE!After you read this, close your eyes and imagine that I am standing in front of you. I am looking into your eyes, you can see my tears and my joy shining, shining just for you. I take my hands, I place them over my heart and then I reach out and place them on your heart. And you carry a part of me with you, as you have cared for a precious soul, she and I will always be a part of you now. Thank you. Thank you.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Crazy day today. I had to drive to Salt Lake to exchange my hubby's cell phone that wasn't working, and in general just do a ton of errands. On my way home I stopped to see Little Man's baby sister. I am so glad we know where she is and that we can see her whenever we want, but going there breaks my heart. On so many levels.First level: The grief over her life. She had a serious birth injury, and while she certainly had illegal drugs in her system, the birth injury was not the birth mother's fault. Seeing this little girl, laying in a crib, almost totally unresponsive just kills me. I wonder so many things when I see her. She is completely vent dependent and is fed by, guess what? A g-tube. Insert ironic laughter. Ha ha, they are tube twins. Why does that hurt? She doesn't have a mama, and she doesn't get to live in a home where she is adored.And the second level. This baby girl is so neglected. Not by the care place, they take care of her physical needs, she is clean, dressed, her curly hair in a pony tail. But she has nothing! She has no beautiful blankets, she has no toys, nothing in her crib to stimulate what brain function she has. I guess this is what happens when both sides of your family are struggling with serious poverty. I asked the nurses what she needed and they said clothes and hair detangler! I asked about toys, they did say music and something like a crib music player. But they said she needed clothes much more. I can do nothing about my first level of grief, but I can do something about the second. So I am hunting at my local second hand kid's places, looking for toys, for things to help this little darling. If any of you feel like you would like to help her, she is wearing a 3T. She is partially blind and partially deaf, but needs toys to help stimulate her on any level. She can't touch a toy to make it work, so she needs things that basically go on their own. If you want to help, drop me an email, lakotajo2 at msn dot com and you have two choices. You can either mail them to me, or if you live locally and would like to meet this precious little girl, it can be arranged too. I can't do this by myself, but with your help, this little girl will get what she needs and what she deserves. I kissed her little hand goodbye today, the hand that looks so much like my son's. I drove home, and then I cried.

Monday, February 02, 2009

I took off with my hubby's car when he got home from work this afternoon so I could go snap some Mountain Monday shots. When I got back, he said, "that didn't take long" and I said, "well, when you have perfect beauty and it just sits there and doesn't move, it isn't hard!"

I love this little leaf, clinging against all hope against the winter storms!

The Pea has a new pet! A mini bunny named Dodger. He is the sweetest thing.

Little Man got a new pet too! A dumbo rat named Ben, (As in Ben 10). Ben is my guilt gift to my son on Friday. Little Man had such an emotional day and when he cried for his pet rat Peter who died, well, that did me in. So now we have a new one. I am a sucker, what can I say?

Here is the Pea being a monkey:

This little piggy is my first commissioned piece! I meet with Bonnie from The Zoo tomorrow to facilitate the adoption process. We shall also do lunch! Yay!